The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

Bells and Wind Chimes

She left Jamie's around 10 or so and tried a different way home that didn't involve the MetroRail. It was a sunny, warmish day; it wouldn't hurt her to walk.

Objectively speaking, she knew parts of Buffalo were still rough and tumble. She knew crime could — and did — happen just about anywhere.

Who she didn't expect to see in the small crowd of onlookers by a strip of caution tape, was Deirdre.

"Come here, Anna Cabbot," they said. Their lantern glowed softly, on the ground at their feet.

Anna's stomach churned, and her feet moved without much input from her conscious mind, seemingly drawn by Deirdre's command alone. She looked over her shoulder, searching for the source of the faint, low, deep sound of a persistent church bell.

Deirdre twisted their fingers together and the world froze around them. Even the flashing lights of a nearby police car stopped strobing. They picked up their lantern — once again a heavy, ungainly thing more at home on a ship — by the handle at the top.

A young white man in a t-shirt and jeans walked toward them, everything about him washed out, like he'd been dipped in bleach. In front of him, cradled between his palms, was something the size of a baseball, golden in color and pulsing softly.

"Hello, Ian," Deirdre said, not unkindly. "You've a choice to make again."

"Yeah. I...I messed up."

Deirdre remained impassive.

"I thought I could..." Ian shrugged. "Being sober is hard."

Anna, unnoticed by Ian, gripped the fabric of her skirt with one hand so hard her knuckles were white.

"I didn't breathe for a long time." Ian glanced at the gold ball in his hands. "I overheard them. They don't think my brain got enough oxygen."

The church bell was a near-constant peal Anna swore she felt in her wires.

"You've a choice to make, Ian," they repeated. "Now is the time to make your choice."

"Maybe I can come back?"

"Perhaps at a different time, on a different path, in a different lifetime," Deirdre said. They let go of the lantern and spread their hands out; the lantern floated upward, pulled along on an invisible thread and pulley until it hovered at chest height.

"Is this the choice you wish to make?" they asked.

Ian nodded. "It is." With one hand under the golden ball, he used his other to open the lantern. He gave it a nudge and blew it lightly from his palm to the waiting warm glow. Pushing the door shut with a fingertip, Ian let out a long breath.

The church bell faded into silence.

Deirdre plucked the lantern from the air and held it loosely at their side again. They flicked their free fingers; Anna startled when sound and movement returned to the world in an abrupt rush. Deirdre was still there next to her, but Ian was gone.

The lantern glowed more gold than soft white. Anna dropped her purse and covered her mouth with both hands.

"He's...you..." she stammered from behind her fingers.

"Yes," Deirdre said simply.

Her wires ached and her scar burned like it had that night in ICU. "I don't — I don't understand."

"You will. In time."

Rattled to her core, Anna snatched her purse from the pavement and walked woodenly away from the caution tape. She took deep, measured breaths and didn't need to look over her shoulder to know Deirdre watched her go.


She'd lost track of how long she'd sat curled in her Adirondack chair on the porch, her sketchbook abandoned on the floorboards until Stevie appeared seemingly out of nowhere in front of her.